Languages

My children have Zulu and Afrikaans words sprinkled into their speech.

My neighbor, and most of the town we live in, speaks Afrikaans.

I have friends who speak Indian, Greek, Xhosa, Venda, and Sotho.

Officially, South Africa has 11 languages.

Language is all around us and the impact on our lives continually proves to be interesting. Our weekly Bible studies are a prime example. Out of five people, last week, I could communicate with three of them in English. Two of the women can’t communicate with each other. God has blessed us with David, our translator, who can communicate with all of them and speaks about ten languages.

Pretty humbling for a girl with a college degree and a smattering of French. David never went to school to learn English or most of the languages he can communicate in.

In December, we will be working in Mozambique for three weeks where the official language is Portuguese. Because of our French background, Scott is able to understand about 70% of what is spoken and believes I will as well. (We’ll see how far my smattering of French takes me.)

I am excited though to pick up a bit of the Portuguese and am starting now with David’s help. I’m also using my daughter as my language tutor to pick up some Afrikaans.

So for now good-bye. . .or shall I say. . .

Vaarwel. . .Salut. . .Adeus. . .Sala sentle. .and Sizobonana!

Lisa